Residency | Theertha Performing Arts Seminar

The Theertha Artists Collective, with support from the Lahore Biennale Foundation (LBF), invited two artists from Pakistan to participate in the international performing platform Borderlines in Colombo. Borderlines saw multiple performances in Borella, on March 16, 2015, as a result of a weeklong residency.

Following a jury process with Salima Hashmi, Ayesha Jatoi and Asma Mundrawala, Zoya Siddiqui and Farwa Hassan Rizvi were selected from Lahore. From March 13 to 15, 2015, the participating artists took part in outreach activities such as seminars, workshops for students and artist talks. In addition, an exhibition called Performed opened at the Lionel Wednt Art Gallery, showcasing previous work from the artists.

Participating performance artists were encouraged to work within the theme of Borders and lines: the temporality of landscape. Borders and lines, while being different in their function are inseparable from each other as visual metaphors and lived experiences. The concepts of border and line are entwined with the temporality of landscape and by implication, they become embodied concepts.

Thinking along these lines– oscillating between the concepts of border, line and landscape – the complex concept of landscape becomes the ‘world’ as it is known, as it is experienced, and as it is imagined by those who dwell therein– those who journey along the paths, connecting lines and borders, constructing webs and networks of associations– networks of ownership. Imagining space couched within and defined by borders and lines is an essential nature of the subjectivity of the nation-state inhabitant. This perhaps lies in the center of contemporary anxieties of knowing and experiencing the world and life.